Ladd] PARITA AND SANTA MARIA ARCHEOLOGY, PANAMA 63 



Jar lips are rounded; spout lips are generally rounded although 

 occasionally flattened horizontally. All the bottles and "a" type 

 bird jars are supported by ring bases. The one example of the "b" 

 type vessel had a shallow widely flared pedestal base; no bases of "c" 

 were recovered. 



Surface. — The most striking aspect of the surface treatment and 

 one of the variety's distinctive features is the faded and flat appear- 

 ance of the colors, a quality accompanied by a distinct tendency for 

 colors to wash off and probably related to the softness of the slip. 

 It is clear from the gloss retained on part of one vessel, however, that 

 the surface originally had been either pohshed or treated with some 

 organic material to provide a lustrous effect. Whether the entire 

 exterior surface or only the decorated area was pohshed is not known. 



The ground shp in all cases is a hght-cream color. Design colors 

 are predominantly black and red with purple occurring on only one 

 sherd, a bottle spout. As usual at the El Hatillo site, red and purple 

 are bordered by black Hues. The design area on the bottles and 

 wingless jars is limited to a band encircling the vessel, on the bottles 

 along the lower portion of the shoulder and on the jar rims from 

 shoulder to Up. The spout, upper shoulder, lower body, and base 

 of the bottles are covered with a red slip (the polychrome spout 

 example excepted). On the other hand, in the case of the wingless 

 bird jars, the cream ground extends over the shoulder and down to 

 the bottom fourth of the body where a narrow black band separates 

 it from the red slip of the lower body and base. Design on both the 

 wingless birds and the bottles is very similar (figs. 15, 16, a, b), con- 

 sisting of angular panels formed by black bordered red bands. A 

 feature which distinguishes this variety from the El Hatillo variety 

 is the use of narrow black lines alone (without the use of red fill) for 

 the formation of filler elements such as straight-sided triangles, "T's" 

 and dashes (fig. 15, a-d, h, i). 



The one example of "b" shape is decorated rather crudely on each 

 wing with a solid black egg-shaped area (fig. 16, e). The tail is 

 solid black. 



It is with "c" shape that the main evidence of curvilinear design 

 appears, in this case a red-filled scroll nested in black fines (fig. 16, c). 

 Along with this possible subvariety, I have grouped the polychrome 

 spout mentioned above (fig. 16, d). The cream slip, lack of poHsh, and 

 red-filled rectilinear designs with dash fill aU place the spout in the 

 variety, but the use of purple suggests afl&nities to the Parita and 

 Macaracas types. 



Variations jrom other sites. — ^A vessel of the De Zeltner Collection 

 from Chiriqui and illustrated by both MacCurdy and Lothrop 

 (MacCurdy, 1911, fig. 256; Lothrop, 1942, fig. 280-e) displays a use 



